This invention relates to a container for materials, preferably scrap iron for steel production and intended to be placed on a stand in a preheating station in order that the scrap iron shall be heated up to a high temperature, and comprising an essentially cylindric upper part and a lower part comprising openable bottom halves.
Scrap iron is usually utilized as a main raw material when producing steel by means of the electric steel method. In this connection as a rule a preheating of the scrap iron is made before it is brought to a furnace for melting. The preheating of the scrap iron being in the container is made in order to save energy and is made by means of flue gases from the furnace in which the scrap iron shall be melted or by means of flue gases from a combustion chamber provided with a burner.
When heating scrap iron the flue gas temperature and the heating time up to now have had to be limited due to the fact that the scrap iron containers do not have such a construction that they are suitable to use if the scrap iron has a high temperature. It is true that the container itself is made of a strong steel plate with thick walls so that it can resist loads in high temperatures, but since the container itself is intended to carry loads, its strength is considerably reduced when scrap iron is heated up to a high temperature by hot gases. An essential reason why the temperature of the container should be high if the scrap iron temperature were high is that the cooling of known containers and the surrounding details is not satisfactory. As a rule this cooling is made by gravity flow of the surrounding air.